From the Act:
“...and that until the title thereto shall have been extinguished by the United States,the same shall be and remain subject to the disposition of the United States...”
Question:
By what mechanism is title extinguished?
Maybe that is what the Utah folks are aiming for.
The mechanism by which US title is extinguished is when it sells or gives away the land.
I’m not necessarily opposed to transferring title to the state, but the state, like any other state, has no “right” to have it transferred. The land belongs to “the people of the United States,” not to the people of the State, up until it’s sold or transferred by Congress.
There is a common misperception that the western states have been mistreated by the government in this regard compared to eastern states. This is simply not true, or at least was not true at their admission.
The Ohio Enabling Act of 1802 served as the template for admission of all later states, except of course Texas. It provided for Congress to retain control of all lands until it sold or gave them away, providing 5% of the proceeds from such land to the state to pay for roads. See Section 6.
http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Enabling_Act_of_1802_%28Transcript%29
The western states were treated the same. Much if not most federal land remained available for purchase or homesteading up thru the mid-20th.
However, out west most land had no buyers, for the simple reason the land was not productive enough economically to get someone to buy it. That’s why almost all ranchers preferred to acquire a few acres for a home ranch, with water rights, and graze their cattle on land still in the public domain.
So make a case why it’s good policy to transfer land to state ownership. But spare me the “rights” rhetoric.